Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to strengthen its oversight of the NGOs it supports.

In response to the letter from the Secretary of State, all UK charities that directly receive UK aid have provided her with a clear statement of assurance on their organisations’ safeguarding environment and policies, organisational culture, transparency and their handling of allegations and incidents. These assurances are a first step towards improving DFID’s oversight of its partners and raising safeguarding standard across the international development sector.

This oversight will be further strengthened through DFID’s new, enhanced and specific safeguarding standards, announced by the Secretary of State at the Safeguarding Summit. These new measures will build on the rigorous monitoring procedures which are currently applied throughout the lifetime of all DFID programmes. They will be integrated into DFID’s Due Diligence Assessments, Supply Partner Code of Conduct and ongoing programme management and compliance checking processes.